With the emergence of the categories risk and professional optimism the introduction of appropriate literature was accepted. New Zealand literature included an autobiographical assessment by a former commander in Afghanistan (Hall, 2010) and an Army publication on service and loyalty. Other literature consisted of FM 3-24, Counterinsurgency, a critique by intelligence staff in Afghanistan, as well as personal US perspectives.
As the commander of a New Zealand Provincial Reconstruction Team in Afghanistan, Hall’s account of his 2009 mission provided a very good insight to the relationship between the commander, his intelligence and operations staff, and the small team patrols. In a surprise call to meet a local powerbroker, he remarked about his assessments and his principal intelligence officer:
Assessments of past events and predicting what was going to happen in the future was incredibly difficult, like completing a jigsaw when you have no idea what the final picture is going to look like, whether you have all the pieces, or whether the pieces that you have got all come from the same puzzle. To some extent experience, personal judgement and intuition play a significant role. I disagreed with Laura’s early intelligence assessments but with time and in hindsight I realised that her judgements were often more accurate that mine. (p. 54)
Hall’s admission that his intelligence officer’s assessments were often more accurate than his own highlighted two important points. Firstly, it demonstrated a commander taking responsibility to make his own personal assessment, not abrogating this important task solely to the intelligence officer. Secondly, it
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showed the accuracy needed by the intelligence officer in order to gain the trust and confidence of the commander. Hall’s view supported the category professional optimism.
The New Zealand Army publication, The Way of the New Zealand Warrior (2007), provided two perspectives:
Initiative has been shown by New Zealand soldiers since the establishment of the New Zealand Army. Innovative thinking, adapting to the current environment and operating in response to changing situations are the mark of initiative. (p. 11)
Adapting from aggressive warlike actions to friendly interactions with the local people has proved to be one of the New Zealand soldier’s greatest skills. (p. 13)
Both of these passages describe some of the characteristics of the modern New Zealand soldier. In being able to adapt to changing situations, soldiers would need good training of the different operating environments in order to act appropriately. This endeavour reflects the category professional optimism.
The US field manual FM 3-0 (United States Army, 2008) and Kelly (2000) are implicit as to one of the fundamental roles of intelligence – “it drives operations” (FM 3-0, 2008, p. 35; Kelly, as cited in Acord, 2007, p. 15). This US doctrinal imperative is at odds with the personal experience of the respondents (Sunray 1, Sunray 2, Holdfast, & Acorn 4). Having operations drive intelligence was a source of much frustration. In this context FM 3-0 and Kelly, supported the category risk.
In their critical review of the state of intelligence in Afghanistan, Flynn, Pottinger, and Batchelor (2010) lambasted the propensity to misread and failure to understand the unconventional character of the COE. They asserted that:
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information to fall into their laps does not work in today’s environment and must end”. (p. 10)
This view was reminiscent of concerns dating back to the period after the US invasion of Iraq in 2003 (Echevarria, 2010; Fallows, 2004; Hoffman, 2004; Ricks, 2006). What was most alarming was the fact that nine years after operations began in Afghanistan, and seven years in Iraq, the conventional warfare type practices were still occurring. Flynn’s et al., views aligned with the codes annoyance and IPB needed for the COE, and in doing so triangulated the category risk.
Brown’s (2003) assessment supports Flynn et al.:
“The IPB process, as presented in doctrine is in part, deficient. It provides an optimum framework, as designed, for determining certain and limited futures [Cold War]. However, it is a poor framework for uncertain environments [COE]”. (p. 44)
Brown further contends that:
Instead of creating a new process that specifically addressed the vagaries of the new [contemporary operating] environment, the intelligence doctrine writers decided to modify a doctrine optimised for the Cold War with patches and add-on techniques, tactics, techniques and procedures to meet current intelligence requirements….These IPB add-ons are not frameworks for analysis but checklists for consideration. (p. 33)
His insistence that the add-ons are merely checklists, in lieu of a new framework of analysis, raises questions about accepting a symptomatic solution rather than engaging in the fundamental solution. This situation has risk, also reflecting the previous IPB in training category of satisficing.
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In concluding the introduction of the IPB on operations literature the analysis confirmed the two categories risk and professional optimism. What was most evident was the inextricable link between the IPB as a process and IPB in the broader sense of intelligence. Hall’s experience showed that the relationship between the commander and the intelligence staff was a crucial factor to operationalise IPB – that being the situation where a commander could act on good advice. FM 3-0 and Kelly established ‘Intelligence leads operations’ as a doctrinal standard. The operational experience by the respondents however, was quite the opposite. This contrast between the doctrine and the reality was a point of frustration, leading to the category of risk.